I wasn't really sure whether I would like this film but it was one of the featured films on Netflix and I've watched several things with Emma Roberts in and always liked her performance. I gave it a little research on here to understand the basic film premise and decided to give it a go.
I was really pleasantly surprised by the tone of the film and I thought that it was a very relevant film in a day and age where everything is online and run by social media and similar. The terrifying notion of how people act when they are hiding behind keyboards and nameless, faceless identities is all too familiar and something I've experienced myself. When people feel that they are hidden away and therefore not culpable for something, it's scary to think what people can do behind that nameless identity. If you were watching somebody that you genuinely did not know or have any relation is to or careful, would you allow yourself to be swept up and expect them to do things that you wouldn't ask someone to do in a face-to-face setting? We have all seen how quickly people can turn ugly and I've even seen people be as callous as to troll and say disparaging things about a celebrities newborn baby so it doesn't seem a far step away that people will expect others to risk their lives for the sake of entertainment when there is no emotional attachment there.
I thought the film was set and paced very well, I liked the atmosphere created and I thought Emma Roberts gave a really good performance in this film. The film is just right to be able follow it but not to the point that it was painful to watch or that you lost interest in the momentum and it steadily increased from harmless fun to questionable humour to outright awful and I thought that that gave the film gravitas.
The only things I didn't like was the fact that text messages and posts from the "nerve" program were sometimes in different languages but I guess that was trying to just highlight the worldwide fever of playing this game. It also does raise some questionable thoughts especially that for something so heavily interacted with worldwide, the police have little or no interest in helping or seemingly researching this online phenomenon to bring it to its knees. That felt a little bit jaded in a world where you can barely breathe without somebody knowing exactly where you are and what you are doing and as lovely as the message is in the ending, I find it hard to believe that those people that were so far gone in terms of getting people to risk their lives, would all of a sudden be swayed by a random woman's ramblings about looking deep inside themselves to find their humanity.
However all in all I have to say the film was actually pretty good and I would recommend it to others to watch and it's something I'd probably revisit in a few years to watch again after I forget the storyline.
A good effort in the world it's oversaturated with films to try and take a new angle on it and to make it a relevant film based on today's keyboard warrior issue.
I was really pleasantly surprised by the tone of the film and I thought that it was a very relevant film in a day and age where everything is online and run by social media and similar. The terrifying notion of how people act when they are hiding behind keyboards and nameless, faceless identities is all too familiar and something I've experienced myself. When people feel that they are hidden away and therefore not culpable for something, it's scary to think what people can do behind that nameless identity. If you were watching somebody that you genuinely did not know or have any relation is to or careful, would you allow yourself to be swept up and expect them to do things that you wouldn't ask someone to do in a face-to-face setting? We have all seen how quickly people can turn ugly and I've even seen people be as callous as to troll and say disparaging things about a celebrities newborn baby so it doesn't seem a far step away that people will expect others to risk their lives for the sake of entertainment when there is no emotional attachment there.
I thought the film was set and paced very well, I liked the atmosphere created and I thought Emma Roberts gave a really good performance in this film. The film is just right to be able follow it but not to the point that it was painful to watch or that you lost interest in the momentum and it steadily increased from harmless fun to questionable humour to outright awful and I thought that that gave the film gravitas.
The only things I didn't like was the fact that text messages and posts from the "nerve" program were sometimes in different languages but I guess that was trying to just highlight the worldwide fever of playing this game. It also does raise some questionable thoughts especially that for something so heavily interacted with worldwide, the police have little or no interest in helping or seemingly researching this online phenomenon to bring it to its knees. That felt a little bit jaded in a world where you can barely breathe without somebody knowing exactly where you are and what you are doing and as lovely as the message is in the ending, I find it hard to believe that those people that were so far gone in terms of getting people to risk their lives, would all of a sudden be swayed by a random woman's ramblings about looking deep inside themselves to find their humanity.
However all in all I have to say the film was actually pretty good and I would recommend it to others to watch and it's something I'd probably revisit in a few years to watch again after I forget the storyline.
A good effort in the world it's oversaturated with films to try and take a new angle on it and to make it a relevant film based on today's keyboard warrior issue.